The Friday 56: Saints and Misfits

The Friday 56 is a weekly blog meme hosted by Freda’s Voice. Join us every Friday and share an excerpt from a book you’ve been reading.

Rules:

*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader.
*Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grab you.
*Post it.
*Add your (url) post here in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url. It’s that simple.

**Be sure to leave a link to your Friday 56 post in the comments!**

“Mom opens the door to my room. She’s wearing a new glittery scarf, and it’s pulled back near her ears, highlighting long pendant earring.

She never wears her scarf like that.

Sandra Kolbinsky’s mom had started dating right after her divorce, and in eighth grade, Sandra told me that a change in dressing signaled someone new in the picture.”

S.K. Ali’s Saints and Misfits completely gutted me. Fifteen-year-old Janna has been keeping her sexual assault a secret and no matter how hard she tries, she can’t seem to escape the presence of the boy who tried to rape her. Saints and Misfits isn’t always an easy read, but I loved that it’s ultimately a story of empowerment. You can read my review of this one here. Cover is linked to Goodreads.

From the Goodreads Synopsis:

      “There are three kinds of people in my world:
      1. Saints, those special people moving the world forward. Sometimes you glaze over them. Or, at least, I do. They’re in your face so much, you can’t see them, like how you can’t see your nose.
      2. Misfits, people who don’t belong. Like me—the way I don’t fit into Dad’s brand-new family or in the leftover one composed of Mom and my older brother, Mama’s-Boy-Muhammad.
      Also, there’s Jeremy and me. Misfits. Because although, alliteratively speaking, Janna and Jeremy sound good together, we don’t go together. Same planet, different worlds.
      But sometimes worlds collide and beautiful things happen, right?
      3. Monsters. Well, monsters wearing saint masks, like in Flannery O’Connor’s stories.
      Like the monster at my mosque.
      People think he’s holy, untouchable, but nobody has seen under the mask
      Except me.”

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